Shaking It Up

The “Meryl Streep of downtown” turns to directing.

The actress Kate Valk directs and performs in “Early Shaker Spirituals,” for the Wooster Group.

Illustration by Josh Cochran

Kate Valk is an interesting theatrical figure, one of the greatest the American stage has produced in the last forty or so years. Yet she is largely unknown if you don’t get to see the work of the Wooster Group (Valk was a founding member, in 1979*), or Richard Foreman, or Richard Maxwell. The Public Theatre programmer Mark Russell has called her the “Meryl Streep of downtown,” and if you think about the variety of roles Valk has taken on as an actress—O’Neill’s Emperor Jones, Racine’s Phèdre, Stein’s Faustus—that description works, but not entirely. Unlike Streep, Valk has made her name as a classical actress who performs in an experimental medium; also, Valk doesn’t like the camera as much as Streep seems to—she has said it’s a black hole she doesn’t know how to play to.

Valk, born in Spokane, Washington, works from the outside in; her style is never less than pure and direct, and disciplined. Her face fascinates, looking neither black nor white, while she is vocally nimble and can do various dialects, as well as, sometimes, m.c. duties. (She was terrific as the narrator in “Brace Up!,” the Wooster Group director Elizabeth LeCompte’s legendary version of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.”) From May 17 through June 15, at the Performing Garage, Valk will not only act in but also direct a new piece. Titled “Early Shaker Spirituals,” it’s inspired by a 1976 recording by the Maine-based Sisters of the United Society of Shakers. An offshoot of the Quakers, the Shakers promoted equality for women, were against procreation, and performed ecstatic religious ceremonies. For her project, Valk has assembled an impressive array of female talent: Frances McDormand, LeCompte, Bebe Miller, Suzzy Roche, and other luminaries. The piece is about ecclesiasticism, and the big but contained joy that informs the act of creativity—along with power and elegance and modesty. Not unlike the Shaker women, Valk is making another home, with a different kind of ceremony. ♦

*An earlier version of this article misstated the year in which Valk joined the Wooster Group.

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